DUBAI (Reuters) – Two French nationals and a Belgian detained in Iran have been charged with espionage and acting against national interests, the spokesman for the Iranian judiciary said on Tuesday, quoted by Students News Network (SNN).
The semi-official Iranian agency does not specify the identity of the three people charged, nor the date of their indictment.
Belgian Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne said last December that a 41-year-old Belgian aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele, who had been detained in Iran for nearly a year, had been sentenced to 28 years in prison after a sham of trial.
Iran released a video last October showing two Frenchmen arrested in May, Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, making “confessions” of espionage. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs then denounced “an unworthy, revolting, unacceptable staging”, speaking of “State hostages”.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said in November that seven French people were being held in Iran and condemned “hostage diplomacy”.
Contacted Tuesday by Reuters, the Quai d’Orsay did not respond immediately.
The Iranian authorities have multiplied the arrests of foreign or dual nationals in recent months, accusing Western countries of encouraging the uprising of the Iranian people since the death in custody in September of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurd who had been arrested for non-compliant veil.
(Written by Elwely Elwelly, French version Tangi Salaün and Sophie Louet with contributions from John Irish in Paris, editing by Kate Entringer and Blandine Hénault)
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